HI Bob,   
      
    ml> not everyone without a job is on welfare but they can still find ways   
    ml> to provide for their needs... this does not mean that they do not   
    ml> "work" for their "living"... contrary to what the gov't believes...    
      
   OF course, because many who were forced to use the system   
   found the means tests and other hoops too onerous, because   
   once they submitted they'd never be able to escape.   
      
   BA> Some do. I've been unemployed, and have drawn unemployment (I'm not   
   BA> eligible for welfare due to my military retirement annuity).  At the   
   BA> moment I've been unemployed for just shy of two years, fortunately   
   BA> I'm eligible for and draw Social Security to pay   
   BA> the bills (that aforementioned annuity makes the house and insurance   
   BA> payments) - so I can say I'm retired. although not by my choice.   
      
   RIght, and some who do find themselves in a trap they can't   
   get out of.   
   SEe below.   
      
   BA> I can remember my parents griping in *1960* about second and third   
   BA> generations of people living on California's at-the-time quite   
   BA> generous welfare system.  Back   
   BA> in those days states provided varying levels of benefits and people   
   BA> were moving to California simply to get on the welfare system there,   
   BA> and the state attempted to place a residency time requirement before   
   BA> one would become eligible - and lost   
   BA> a federal lawsuit over it.  The feds gradually took over the entire   
   BA> welfare system -   
   BA> mainly by mandating that states provide certain levels of benefits   
   BA> and eligibility,   
   BA> not by paying for it.  The federal Medicaid program is even worse   
   BA> off than Medicare WRT funding - and has been for years.   
      
   MIght have been generous payments to the baby factories, but for those who   
   went blind the requirements were onerous.  IF   
   you wanted to, for example, return to working as an   
   automechanic, the cost of your tools, etc. counted against   
   you.  such programs, before federal standardization were   
   administered by the counties, and you were under the   
   capricious thumb of a possibly ignorant socialworker.  As   
   soon as you give somebody control over somebody else's life, especially when   
   that somebody is an otherwise powerless   
   paper shuffler then you've got a problem.  Federal   
   standardization, at least in the aid to the blind programs   
   made the rules the same for everybody.  IN other programs it was partially   
   inacted to stem the tide of migration from one place to another.   
      
   IF you want to read up on the subject from the point of view of intelligent   
   folks who found themselves as "beneficiaries" (victims) of the system, read   
   HOpe Deferred by Jacobus   
   TenBroek.   
      
   tenBroek was a law professor at UC. Berkeley, and blind   
   since he was a small boy as the result of an accident.   
   Real trouble is, what was supposed to happen didn't work as   
   reliably as they thought.  ONe was still subject to the   
   whims of whatever "caseworker" one had to deal with.  SOme   
   weren't really too clued up on the fact that so-called   
   disabled folks were still able to be productive, unless they were pushing   
   somebody into a menial dead-end job which   
   wouldn't really pull them out of poverty.  IT doesn't matter how much you   
   patch the system to try to eliminate this if   
   the socialworkers in the field don't understand, and   
   evenhandedly apply the rules.   
      
   THen there's the fact that the system is far more generous   
   to the babymakers, and too many loopholes have allowed those who should not be   
   qualified to receive benefits.  Iow the   
   system is still extremely dysfunctional and broken.   
      
   Regards,   
              Richard   
   --- timEd 1.10.y2k+   
    * Origin:  (1:116/901)